Effective Techniques for Conducting Knowledge Interviews
- Dr. Moria Levy
- Sep 1, 2002
- 3 min read
You've started managing knowledge in your organization. You've passed the stage of mapping topics and characterizing a preferred subject, you've characterized a solution, and built a knowledge repository, portal, intranet site, or any other solution. Now you're facing an important stage.
What is it? You cannot open the system to users without initial content; who would want to use an "empty" system? Who would want to add content to it, just like that, as a volunteer? For this purpose, the stage of "building the initial content core" was created. Its goal is to build a critical mass of initial knowledge by interviewing the people who hold the knowledge. However, we often encounter obstacles during the interview stage. Like knowledge management, the interview and content collection stage also contains cultural, process, and computational aspects. Below are several insights that will help you overcome obstacles you may encounter:
Culture:
The obstacle: Interviewees' fear of losing empowerment.
During the interview, emphasize to the interviewee that you are not nullifying their knowledge and contribution to the organization by collecting content, but rather the opposite. Through their knowledge contribution, you are empowering them. By giving credit (giving Credit), you are sharing with the organization and informing senior management about what this employee is doing in the field. This way, the rest of the organization will know their level of knowledge and know whom to turn to as an expert when needed. Use creditization delicately since there are people who prefer to do their work quietly and modestly.
It's recommended to provide examples of other individuals within the organization who have contributed knowledge in previous interviews. It's equally important to give an example of senior staff who didn't hesitate to share knowledge. When people understand that not only are they sharing knowledge but others are too, and especially if the knowledge that others share gives them added value, they tend to share knowledge willingly and remove their resistance.
The obstacle: Questions that cause discomfort among interviewees.
Sometimes a certain question causes discomfort among people in the organization and creates resistance among interviewees. It's very important to be sensitive to the individual during the interview process. If you encounter sensitivity in a particular organization or among a certain group of people regarding a question in the interview, try to change it or find indirect ways to extract the required information.
The obstacle: Unwillingness to share knowledge due to a lack of time or due to the effort of writing.
There are cases where employees lack the time or willingness to make the effort to write the knowledge items. However, by setting a time frame for an interview, they are willing to share the knowledge when the interviewer is the one who writes and summarizes.
The obstacle: What do I get out of this? Why should I give something I worked so hard on?
Try to find out during the interview what information is important to the interviewee before you, and then show them the items containing this important information. Such information was previously inaccessible to them. Show them items that others worked hard on and agreed to share, and now they can use them.
Process:
The obstacle: Lack of continuity in content collection.
The interview is a correct tool to use for the first time in content collection. On an ongoing basis, the content collection method should be integrated into work processes to become a regular process, rather than a one-time event.
Already during the interview, pay attention to nodes as future anchors and to people as content experts who can be used in more advanced stages for ongoing content collection.
The obstacle: Template questions (pre-prepared questions).
Sometimes, the interviewee has nothing to contribute to you, according to the questions you have prepared. However, this doesn't mean they aren't willing to share knowledge. Listen to them - sometimes you'll reach things you maybe didn't think of before, and they will help with content collection in a slightly different way than you planned.
Computing:
The obstacle: The individual's fear of needing to work with a computer.
In organizations where the computer is not a central work tool, there are people whose fear of the computer deters them from sharing knowledge. Dedicate time in the interview to show them how easy it is to navigate the system you built and how easy it is to input content into it. This way, the initial implementation of the tool is also achieved.
In conclusion, remember: The key word is listening. Good luck!
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